Two men and two women died in the attack on central Vienna on Monday night that the Austrian interior minister blamed on an Islamic State sympathizer, the only known attacker who was shot dead by police, Vienna’s police chief told a news conference on Tuesday.
The dead attacker was a 20-year-old Austrian-North Macedonian dual national who had a previous terror conviction. At least one more suspect is still at large, but Austrian police said on Tuesday morning that two more suspects had been arrested in the town of St. Poelten, around 60 km (40 miles) west of Vienna.
Witnesses described the men firing into crowds in bars with automatic rifles, as many people took advantage of the last evening before a nationwide curfew was introduced because of COVID-19.
HAPPENING NOW – Terror alert in Vienna: Attack on a synagogue. Shots fired. Massive police operation underway. This is a developing story.pic.twitter.com/bUirWB0K7E
— Disclose.tv 🚨 (@disclosetv) November 2, 2020
Police shot and killed one assailant. Seventeen people were being treated in hospitals, with gunshot wounds but also cuts, Vienna’s hospital service said. Seven of them were in life-threatening condition Tuesday after the attack, according to the Austrian news agency APA.
Law enforcement sealed off much of the historic center of Vienna, urging the public to shelter in place. Many sought refuge in bars and hotels, while public transport throughout the old town was shut down and police scoured the city. Police urged social media users not to post videos of the ongoing police operation, so as not to endanger officers.
Austrian Interior Minister Karl Nehammer described the assailant killed by police in an attack in central Vienna on Monday as an “Islamist terrorist”. “We experienced an attack yesterday evening from at least one Islamist terrorist,” he told a news conference, calling the man an Islamic State sympathizer.
Nehammer later told APA that the dead assailant, who had roots in the Balkan nation of North Macedonia, had a previous conviction under a law that punishes membership in terrorist organizations. He had been handed a 22-month sentence but was released on parole in early December.
The gunman, 20, was born and raised in Vienna and was known to domestic intelligence because he was one of 90 Austrian Islamists who wanted to travel to Syria, a newspaper editor said on Tuesday.
Kurtin S. had “Albanian roots” but his parents were originally from North Macedonia, the editor of the weekly Falter newspaper Florian Klenk said on Twitter, without giving details of the source for that information. Police thought he was not capable of planning an attack in Vienna, Klenk added.
Fifteen house searches have taken place and several people have been arrested, he added. The attacker, he said, “was equipped with a fake explosive vest and and an automatic rifle, a handgun and a machete to carry out this repugnant attack on innocent citizens.”
